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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Guy Shtotland, Assaf Kolin, Benoit Geslot, Patrick Blaise, Nir Kastin
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1733-1742
Technical papers from: PHYSOR 2022 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2174761
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Kinetic neutron parameters are of fundamental importance in the field of nuclear reactor dynamics and control. Moreover, the precursor yield fraction and the neutron generation time for a given nuclear reactor are dependent on the properties of the reactor. Thus, in-pile experiments, such as oscillation experiments and noise experiments, are commonly conducted to measure those values. In this work, a method for determining the kinetic parameters of a reactor along with their covariance data from in-pile experiments is presented. It is performed by combining values of the reactor’s response function obtained from both oscillation and noise experiments over a wide range of frequencies. The method is carried out for the MINERVE zero power reactor (ZPR) using a reanalysis of both oscillation and noise experiments that were conducted in the MINERVE reactor in 2013 and 2014. Moreover, various advantages and disadvantages of performing multiple in-pile experiments and combining their results in order to obtain a single set of kinetic parameters along with their covariance data are considered. Some suggestions for the design of such in-pile experiments are also discussed.